Best Starter -- Cold (2004)

Chef John Broening loves charcuterie. He left his last executive-chef gig because that menu was too dainty, too precious. And now he's at Brasserie Rouge, LoDo's hot new French bistro, where he turns out big, lusty flavors night after night. The biggest can be found on the assiettes de charcuterie platter, the town's

best way to start off a meal without firing up the oven. Each platter includes fragrant, cold lamb sausage spiced with fennel on rounds of baguette spread with spicy Dijon mustard; duck-liver pté beaten into a smooth, airy mousse just waiting to be smeared onto chunks of French bread torn from loaves made by the restaurant's in-house bakery; chilled slabs of gamey rabbit pté buried under a fall of baby greens and touched with a compote of sweet apples, delicate herbs and sharp autumnal spice. All of it is lovely, all of it is delicious, and paired with a smooth glass of anything from the Brasserie bar, it's a meal in itself.